By Joe Chapman
GRENADA gained a confidence-boosting 2-1 win over Guyana’s Golden Jaguars yesterday when the teams clashed in an international friendly game at the GCC ground, Bourda, ahead of their World Cup Qualifiers this year and in front of a large crowd.

The Grenadians were well-organised and consistent, while Guyana could not complete their execution to the plan. As promised the Grenadians proved difficult opponents for a Guyana team which did create quite a few more scoring opportunities, but just could not outscore their rivals, to come away victorious.

Grenada, through hard work against a skilful Guyana side, played a pressing game as the home team sometimes failed to move quickly enough into attacking mode.

It was Guyana who first fired the warning shots with Shawn Bishop not controlling his early shot as it went over the crossbar.

Then Anthony Abrams was guilty of allowing a cross to go harmlessly away from a good position to execute within the first ten minutes of play. But fortunes were against Guyana when their best chance came early, but saw forward Nigel ‘Powers’ Codrington’s shot crash against the crossbar from on top the 18 yards box and schemer Shawn Beveney’s drive was held by the Grenadian goalkeeper.
Bishop’s left-foot shot called the visitors’ goalkeeper into action once more and two more attempts by Abrams and Codrington saw Guyana still being unable to get the go-ahead goal.

All along the Grenadians were keeping tabs on their opponents and an opportunity presented itself when midfield player Cassim Langaigne collected a through pass after running into a free space, left by Howard Lowe not being unable to recover and pressure his opponent fast enough, and unleashed a left-foot shot to the far corner, beating Guyana’s goalkeeper Richard Reynolds in the process for a 1-0 advantage, much to the disappointment of the large crowd.

Guyana’s continued aggression was notable but their fluency was wanting. At the same time the defence of the Grenadians was being marshalled by right wing back Mark Marshall who, along with Patrick Modeste, did create problems for the Guyanese strikers.

But Guyana did get to level the score when Codrington missed a cross from Shawn Beveney, which landed on the feet of Shawn Bishop who made no mistake in sending a well-placed shot to score on the stoke of halftime.

With the game evenly balanced, Grenada must have felt they were getting the better of the exchanges and perhaps they did. They played with assurance and balance when they were moving into attacking mode while the Guyanese seemed less assured of how to complete their forays.

But the Guyanese were still trying to out-manoeuvre their bigger and taller opponents who were running well into the spaces.

But by then Dennis Renee had come on to replace another striker, Kitson Bain, and it paid dividends as Renee was able to give his team the winning goal. In the 70th minute Lowe went to challenge another player down the right flank and by not giving him enough pressure the player was able to cross and the ball went past Carey Harris where, with Reynolds out of position, Dennis Renee lashed home goal number two.

The substitutes did come on for both teams but the Guyanese must blame themselves for creating more chances and not being able to get more goals and this was the case when the game ended.

Grenada’s head coach Morris Wilson summed up the game this way, “Grenada got more than what they bargained for, taking into consideration they had been training for only six weeks: and it was a higher-ranked team than theirs they opposed.

Jamal Shabazz, the technical director for the Guyana team said: “everybody would be disappointed that we lost and they should be.

Sometimes you got to lose to win and this loss, it doesn’t hurt us in the league because of the fact that we are trying to expose players and trying to build a game plan, build a rhythm. So we are going to lose some along the way.”

Both sides lost a player who had to be taken to hospital, and made five substitutions to have more players exposed. Captain Charles Pollard was hit in the head and substituted in the 65th minute after which he was taken to hospital but he should be okay.

Striker Gregory Richardson came in the interim for Pollard, before Abrams and Codrington were substituted four minutes later with Konata Manning and Kelvin McKenzie.